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Vincent Van Gogh Vincent was born on March 30, 1853, in the village of Groot Zunbert in the Dutch province of North Brabant. At sixteen, he left school. Through the influence of Uncle Cent, a place was found for him in the office of Goupil and Cie at The Hague. Goupil’s was a conservative house, specializing in well-made reproductions of famous paintings. When he was twenty Vincent was transferred, with a fine recommendation, to the London branch of Goupil’s. He found a room in the home of Mrs. Loyer, who with her daughter Ursula. In 1875 Uncle Cent arranged for him to be transferred to the Paris office in the hope that his spirits might be revived by a change in scene. Here he became increasingly careless in his work. He was given three months notice, and then six years of training as an art dealer ended. He was almost twenty-three, unemployed, and had not the slightest idea what he would do next. Vincent decided to return to England, where he found a job as a teacher in a boarding school. After he gave up that job, he took another teaching job at a school in Isleworth. As a young man, Vincent Van Gogh’s strongest compulsion was to love and help mankind. The son of a minister, he chose quite naturally to take up religion. However, his evangelical mission was a disaster. The major reason Van Gogh committed him to being an artist was that through art he could pour out his feelings. If he could not alleviate the hard life of the poor Dutch peasant, at least he could show his compassion in drawing and paintings. Perhaps this was his way to a communion with God. In any case, it was in this crucible that his art was formed. In his short life, Van Gogh wrote nearly a thousand letters, often several a day. However, even as he was writing so expressively Van Gogh apparently felt that words were not as distinct as pictures. Having decided at twenty-seven that his mission in life was to become an artist, he established his first “studio” in the cottage of a Borinage coal...